Psychology in the Taxi.

Asked me where I was going. Told him I had a psychology exam in the Tennis Courts in Salthill.

He shrugged and put it into first. Didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just gave an odd glance at the papers and books I was trying to cram before we got there.

Eventually he broke the silence with: ‘Did you ever get the shits, did ya?’

‘The shits?’
‘Yeah, a dose of the shits, fuck me, I got them once, had a horse runnin and I got awful excited and next thing my fuckin hole opened. Thank fuck there was a Jacks close by, had to sit on the fuckin thing for nearly half an hour…’

I was trying to block him out and take in Freud, Skinner, Jung, and Spearman’s Row, (whatever the fuck that was).

He went on: ‘I picked her up there, not far from your house, she was down from Dublin, after stayin the night in some local fella’s place, said the men down here are no good at all, she didn’t get a proper ride the night before, fuckin ragin she was, after comin all the way down….’

‘And what did you do?’

-‘Well she was kinda lookin me up and down alright, she says, “You’re probably a proper man alright” she says, I says I am, I fuckin am, why wouldn’t I be? “There’s a later train” she goes, “I could get that” I says how do you mean? “Pull in” she says, so I found a quiet sideroad and I pulled in and up she hopped and took out my flute and, fuck me, we nearly broke the seat here, thought she was goin to paralyze herself off the steerin wheel at one stage…anyway, I gave her a good goin over and she was happy then, you know, went home happy. “You’re the fella I was lookin for alright,” She goes. “Where were you last night?!” Any time, says I, ring the fuckin number. “No” she says, “that’ll do now, it’ll only spoil it if I see you again.” So I dropped her back at the train and she fucked off and that was it. Christ, the fuckin women’d crack your head, wouldn’t they? Psychology now, what’s that about?’
‘It’s the study of the human mind.’

‘Do you know much about it?’
‘I hope so. There’s 400 people doin the exam and only the top 26 go through to next year.’

He gave me a good long look, narrowly missed a cyclist, and said: ‘You’re probably fucked so. Does this place have a Jacks out here?’
‘Thanks. I don’t know.’
‘Them fuckin books are awful big.’
‘I s’pose they are.’
‘I hope you don’t get the shits anyway. Can you look into the fellas copy beside you if you don’t know the answers? That’s what I used to do anyway…’
‘The tables are too far apart.’

He sniffed and tutted. ‘Ah sure they’ve copped on to evertyhin now, can’t get away with anythin anymore…I’m just finished myself, did the night shift, home now for the breakfast and shleep for the day. Here we are now, besta luck…’

The meter said €8.60 then he pressed a button and it went up to €10.75 and he said: ‘A tenner’ll do.’

I said thanks and paid him and went in and did the exam.
I got 48%.
Decided I might try and be a writer instead.

(Includes Worldwide Delivery and Postage) Charlie’s out on bail and back on the sauce. Still devastated over the events of El Niño, he drinks to kill the pain and robs all he can to feel alive. But the past won’t give him peace. The police want him in jail. Kramer’s old crew have a price on his head, and his new employer has big plans to carve out his own niche in the criminal underworld — with Charlie at the helm. Roped into a series of audacious heists and ingenious schemes, he finds himself involved with illegal diesel in Westmeath, stolen cash machines in Mayo and violent debt collection in Galway. Couple that with his regular income of stealing wallets and robbing shops and you have a cyclone of a man roaring down a path to destruction. And bringing everybody with him. And then there’s Karena. The beautiful girl that may save him — but maybe she should know better? At times dark, others touching, and often comic, Mokusatsu is a fiction readers feast of Irish Crime Writing.